FAA Again Demands Burbank Repayment

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration told the Burbank Airport authority Tuesday that it must repay the money -- estimated to be more than $20 million -- it used to buy land for a new terminal that has yet to be built.

The decision by FAA Administrator Marion C. Blakey, who rejected a last-ditch effort by airport commissioners to keep the funds, further clouds the prospects for replacing the airfield’s 73-year-old terminal with a new and safer facility.

“We’ve got our back against a rock and a hard place on this one,” said Chris Holden, president of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority. “The plan we submitted to the FAA, that was our Hail Mary. The ball’s rolling around in the end zone and the time’s run out.”

For more than two decades, airport officials have tried to relocate the terminal, which sits hundreds of feet closer to the runways than permitted under current standards. But the project has been bogged down by litigation and political opposition.

Earlier this year, Blakey told a delegation of local officials that she was fed up with the impasse over the airport’s new terminal project. She asked the airport to return the federal funds used to buy land for the project so that the money could be put to more productive use.

In response, airport officials proposed several new aviation-related projects, such as building a new “hush house” so that aircraft being repaired could rev their engines in an enclosed building and moving a parking lot farther from a runway. Commissioners had hoped that the plan, which they submitted to the FAA in May, would allow the airport to justify keeping all of the $45.6 million in federal grants that were used to buy 139 acres of land, a portion of which was designated for a new terminal.

But in a letter faxed to commissioners Tuesday, Blakey said the airport’s proposed uses for 55 of the 139 acres -- including the “hush house” and parking relocation projects -- were unacceptable. She gave the authority 30 days to appraise the 55 acres and remit the value for the portion paid by the FAA.

“That 55 acres was purchased with a variety of funds, some of which was FAA money,” said Donn Walker, an FAA spokesman. “They have to pay back the FAA’s pro rata share of that.”

Holden, the airport authority president, estimated the amount to be in the mid-$20-million range.

To repay the FAA, the airport authority could dip into its dwindling reserves. But that idea displeases some commissioners, who spent tens of millions of reserve funds on federally required security upgrades in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The authority also faces declining parking revenue -- traditionally an important source of funding for airport operations -- because of increased competition from a new privately owned lot nearby. Commissioners recently adopted the second budget in two years that would run a deficit.

Last year, the airport had reserves of $71 million. Now, it has only about $48 million.

“We’re kind of limited in what we can do,” Holden said.

Others consider selling land to repay the FAA unpalatable because no other available parcels would be feasible for building a new terminal someday.

“Once that land is gone, it’s gone,” said Charles Lombardo, vice president of the authority.

Commissioners will discuss the airport’s options at a meeting Monday.